The Fast of Gedaliah: The Roots of Political Murder

THE FAST OF GEDALIAH: THE ROOTS OF POLITICAL MURDER

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By Eli Kavon

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The Fast of Gedaliah is a minor day of commemoration in the Jewish calendar. The fast takes place the day after the Jewish New Year. But Jewish knowledge of the real nature of this fast day was transformed on the evening of November 4, 1995: Yigal Amir gunned down Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the streets of Tel Aviv. It seemed for the first time that political murder had come to Israel.

The facts are more complex. Political murder by one Jew of another Jew is not a new phenomenon in Jewish history. That brings us to the ancient figure of Gedaliah ben Ahikam, governor of Babylonia-occupied Judah.

Gedaliah was a hero to some, a traitor to others. He had a difficult task: Gedaliah had to assume the governorship of what was left of the Kingdom of Judah after the Babylonian conquest and the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. Gedaliah led a moderate faction that took the controversial stance not to rebel against the Babylonians. This political moderation crushed any possibility of the revival of the monarchy of King David’s heirs. Gedaliah’s governorship destroyed the hopes of many—but he was not to blame. Was it not Babylonia’s Nebuchadnezzar who was responsible for this national catastrophe?

Gedaliah tried desperately to normalize life for his people. He instituted land reforms to benefit the poor and followed the prophet Jeremiah’s wisdom for the conquered to accept their situation. But there were those in Judah who considered Jeremiah and Gedaliah defeatists. Gedaliah’s governorship ended when Ishmael ben Nethaniah murdered the ruler whom he considered a traitor. The assassin received logistical support from the king of Ammon who coveted what was left of Judah. The debacle that followed left Judah bereft of any autonomy.

Did Gedaliah deserve to die? Was he not a practical man and a political realist? He knew the Babylonian empire was invincible, in much the same way that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai surrendered to the Romans centuries later? His assassin Ishmael did not think so. The dreams of the glory of monarchy died hard—the most visible embodiment of the dashing of these hopes was Gedaliah ben Ahikam. Perhaps his murderer considered the governor a collaborator, nothing better than a stooge of a Judenrat appointed by the occupying power. We will never know. But the image of a political moderate hunted down by an extremist who considered the ruler a traitor does resonate with the events of our own day

?Murder carried out in the name of a political cause is not new to the State of Israel or the Jewish people. The first example of political murder in the history of the yishuv—pre-state Israel—was the Hagannah’s assassination of Jacob Israel de Haan. The murder occurred on June 30, 1924. De Haan, a Dutch Jewish literary writer and journalist, turned to Haredi Judaism after his aliya to Israel. He was an outspoken defender of the ultra-Orthodox opposition to Zionism in Eretz Yisrael. De Hann today is revered by the Neturei Karta and the Edah HaCharedit as a martyr who gave his life for “Torah-true” Judaism. This case of political murder has been ignored by most historians and ideologues because of De Haan’s politics and his anti-Labor Zionist stance. One does not need agree with De Haan to condemn his murderers.

Consider the still unknown killers of Chaim Arlosoroff, the rising star of Labor Zionism gunned down on a Tel Aviv beach in 1933, likely because he was negotiating with Nazi Germany to plan the emigration of Jews in the Reich to the Land of Israel. The Labor Party leader’s wife was never clear in identifying the gunmen. It is possible that Revisionist Zionists, supposed followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky—Jabotinsky would never have condoned Jews killing other Jews in cold blood—considered Arlosoroff a traitor and sentenced him to death. No one knows.

On March 3, 1957, three men shot Reszo Kasztner in Tel Aviv. Kasztner—a Hungarian Jew who immigrated to Israel after the Second World War and served as an important figure in various ministries of Labor Zionist governments—died of his wounds two weeks later.

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Toward the end of World War II, Reszo Kasztner bargained with Adolf Eichmann, the Gestapo officer who coordinated the transport of Jews from all parts of Europe to death in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Kasztner was able to rescue 1,684 Hungarian Jews. This remnant of Hungarian Jewry was made up of industrialists, intellectuals, Orthodox rabbis, Kasztner’s Zionist colleagues and his anti-Zionist enemies, and Polish and Slovak Jews who served as slave labor in concentration camps. The price for the rescue to Switzerland was $1,500 for each family. The wealthy Jews of Budapest collected the money.

In August 1952, another Hungarian Jew who survived the Nazi genocide wrote a pamphlet in Israel attacking Kasztner. Malchiel Grunwald blamed the Labor Zionist official for saving his friends in the Zionist movement, as well as his family, and leaving the rest of Hungarian Jewry to their horrible fate. Kasztner took Grunwald to an Israeli court and sued him for libel. Kasztner’s accuser was subsequently acquitted and Kastzner was, in the minds of many, a collaborator. His killers obviously agreed with the court’s assessment.

Murder in the name of patriotism, personal and national vengeance or political and religious purity is not a new phenomenon. But Jews should never accept it as the “business as usual” of the reality of politics. It is not just about the tragedy of civil war or the undermining of democracy. The killers of Gedaliah, Arlosoroff, Kastzner, and Rabin refused to distinguish between tough political decisions that had to be made and their own dreams of glory and absolute justice compromised. The betrayers were condemned to execution. This is especially tragic in the case of Prime Minister Rabin. The Oslo Accords have proven dangerous to Israel. But Yigal Amir ended the debate over Israel’s future with bullets. He ended any true possibility for debate. And Rabin was dead in a pool of blood.

Amos Oz, the prominent Israeli novelist, has described his countrymen as “circumcised Cossacks.” Is this really so? Should Jews simply let themselves be destroyed by their enemies rather than assume political power and stand up for their right to live? Perhaps the notion of “purity of arms” in the IDF has been exaggerated. To be sovereign in your homeland comes with a heavy responsibility. Jews, like all human beings, are Aristotle’s “political animals.” But that does not mean every Jew in Israel is a “miniature Eichmann.” Amos Oz should know better—the arms are the arms of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. In Jewish history political murder is not the norm.